The quietly cruel “daughter of racism,” as dubbed by Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o, colourism is the discrimination against darker skinned individuals of a racialized group. Colourism exists in all racialized communities and can be seen in the faces we see on the big screen all over the world to the existence of widely advertised skin-lightening creams that are extremely popular in South Asian communities especially.
For those with darker skin, especially young girls, it’s years of loved ones telling you not to spend too much time in the sun lest your skin gets even darker, it’s not being able to match your skin tone when you’re shopping for foundation, it’s viewing yourself as an extra in your own life because every main character has that long blonde hair and pale skin, it’s being told at your first sleepover that no boy will ever like you because of your brown skin.
Colourism is an issue that is often brushed aside in racialized communities, something that lurks in the background of most conversations about appearance, but never directly acknowledged. The highly popular Netflix show, “Indian Matchmaking” reveals the uncomfortable truths behind the practice of arranged marriage in many South Asian communities that exist in the name of tradition. Among these, colourism is largely prevalent, with many prospective grooms and brides describing their ideal significant other to be “tall, trim and fair.”
In South Asian entertainment industries such as Bollywood, many breakthrough actresses are either half-white or fair to the point that they look white. An example of this in the Tamil film industry is Amy Jackson, a white British actress who takes roles away from Tamil women by playing Tamil characters because the industry considers her to be more worthy of the role because of her white skin. Misogyny and colourism often attack as an unforgiving team, with actors in the South Asian film industries having darker skin being normalized and boasted as attractive while a majority of actresses are lighter skinned. This is also largely prevalent in Hollywood, where many people of colour on the big screen are light-skinned individuals and actors with darker skin even being told that they are “too dark” for television.
It all goes hand-in-hand with the hierarchical oppressive caste system in India and the effects of colonialism that planted its racist roots in racialized communities in order to further an agenda that benefitted them by portraying Black people and darker skinned individuals as inferior to those who had lighter skin. Prior to the colonization of these regions, using India as an example, the many different cultures within the region coexisted with one another, and although their existence was not always peaceful, the reason behind their conflict was never an issue of race or difference in physical appearance based on skin colour.
Many Hindu deities, heroes, and heroines of epic works of fiction are portrayed to be of darker skin colour and are revered and described to be beautiful, suggesting that prior to the colonization of these regions, the difference in skin colour between cultures did not have an effect on regional conflicts. However, it was due to the aggressive colonization tactics used by European countries in order to gain profit and claim foreign lands for their own that racism and colourism as its less distinguishable sister emerged.
With British colonization, colonizers appointed themselves to distinguished administrative positions with darker skinned Indians having to do menial labour while their lighter skinned counterparts were recruited as liaisons between the British and the native Indians. This segregation between white folk, light-skinned Indians and darker skinned Indians essentially formed the modern day basis for the colourism that exists in India and other South Asian communities.
It’s vital that we turn our gaze inwards towards our internalized colourism while we actively work on unlearning racist biases. Systemic racism was kicked into high gear by colonization and it paved the way for colourism to take root within our communities. It is the lasting effects of colonialism that allows both colourism and anti-blackness to continue thriving today. We need to recognize our responsibility to unlearn and address these issues in order to better identify and dismantle racism in our communities.
Pay attention when you see people of colour being represented in popular media. Is there an oversaturation of light-skinned characters and artists being portrayed? What are the comments under a light-skinned woman’s selfie on Twitter saying versus the comments underneath a dark-skinned woman’s selfie? When you start to look, colourism continues to leave a significant mark as the fight against systemic racism continues.
Shaki Sutharsan (she/her) is a 19 year old Tamil Canadian writer based in Toronto. She is the Assistant Editor of the Kiwi Collective and also writes for her blog, Kutti Corner (@kutticorner on Instagram) where she navigates topics such as mental health and starting difficult conversations with parental figures as a child of immigrants.
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